Messages

11

General Mach Discussion / Re: Getting Disillusioned with Mach3.

« on: January 20, 2012, 12:40:45 PM »

Tweakie and the rest of you fine gentlemen.

I have no complaints to make. I am extreemly happy with Mach3. I use version 22 (the stable version?) and look forward to the release of the next "stable" version. I am very pleased that Brian and ART have both posted here. Its great to see the men in the know and doing the stuff reading gripes etc and then posting replies.

I read with great interest Brians Mach 4 posting. I do have one question, its quite possibly not the place to post here but here goes anyway. I use a G100. I know its old, superceded and not supported but I love it. Its reliable, does the job and has loads of input and outputs available. I do use these. Its also driven via network! All positives. I know its reported that the FRO wont work on the G100 but I made a macropump work around for this and mine works. To a fashion. lol. OK< the question is this, will Mach 4 still work via my G100? I would change to the SS but I prefere not to.


Regards and keep up the good work. MOST appreciated.

Mike.

12

General Mach Discussion / Re: What is a charge pump?

« on: January 07, 2012, 01:40:54 PM »

Well thats me told then isnt it?

13

General Mach Discussion / Re: What is a charge pump?

« on: January 07, 2012, 08:40:39 AM »

ok, well its a safety divice.
Basically Mach3 when running can output a signal that turns on then off then on etc. If Mach3 is running OK then pulses happen, if not then no pulses. OK, thats the Mach3 / computer side of thigs. Now for the electronics. Outside of the computer is a relay that cuts power to either spindle, drives or both. Basically, it shuts down the machine so its in a safe condition. This relay is connected to a device which is connected to the output pin (look in general configs and set pin from there ). In essence, if there is a steady stream of pulses then the relay operates and motors etc will be active if required. However, if the stream stops (Mach3 crashed, PC crashed or PC switched off ) then the relay opens and cuts of power and makes machine safe.

All in all, its a device that ensures that the machine will only work IF Mach3 is in control of it.

There is a link on this forum somplace for charge pump circuits or just take a look at the gecko website.


PS, its a very good device to have. Machines DONT care if its metal, wood or hands thats being cut.

Regards.
Mike.

14

General Mach Discussion / Re: computer problem, need to save what I can

« on: January 03, 2012, 01:54:17 PM »

i_r_machinist, if its XP or 2000 you can boot to dos from the windows cdrom. Make sure that your BIOS is setup to boot from CDROM. Put the disk in and start the computer. The computer will start and ask you if you want to boot from CD. Press enter and then the computer will start up from the CD. When it does you will be given several options. WARNING, its from here that you can screw things up so be careful.

Choose the repair windows option. This will rebuild, repair or copy any corrupted windows files. It may take some time so make yourself a cup of tea and be patient.

If all goes well the PC will restart, this time dont allow it to boot from CDROM. Windows will come up. Its at this stage that you make a backup of ALL important files.

I wish you the best of luck.

Stirling, most PC shops / repair centres do that. Its normal practice. Data recovery is expensive and time consuming and most "normal" people arnt prepared to pay for it. However, you are right, in my opinion they are doing a simple job for lots of money and thats just wrong.

Regards.

Mike.

15

Brains Development / Re: Ethernet connection for Mach3

« on: January 01, 2012, 06:24:26 PM »

The Gecko G100 was networked. I love mine. They arnt made anymore, LOTS of people had problems with them but I stand by mine. I am thinking of the new Smooth Stepper when it comes out.

Mike.

16

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Re: Eagle & pcb-gcode help

« on: December 30, 2011, 06:26:50 PM »

Its also quite possible that the gap is too small for the cutter that you specified. ie, the gaps 1mm and the cutter is 1.5mm.

17

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: New people welcome !! Come in here and introduce your self!

« on: November 02, 2011, 06:57:17 PM »

Hi, my name is Mike.

I have a bridgeport Interact 1A that had a TNC 150b. It was great till it let the smoke out of one of the servo drives. That was a few years ago now. I removed the servos and fitted large stepper motors and drives, G100 (it's great! and I love it) Mach3 and VFD for the now new AC spindle motor.

Its accurate and easy to use. I have all the jogging joysticks working, Feed rate and spindle over ride, brake, coolant, loads of external input buttons, a full featured MPEG.

I mainly use this machine to make gearboxes for combat robots and internal chassis for R2D2 robots.

CAD is TurboCAD V9 Pro (its old but works well) and CAPSmill V8.1 for the CADCAMM generating GCode files.

To get my machine working again has been a long and frusterating path but well worth it.

I also have a Bridgeport Universal J head and I intend to leave this as a manual mill.

Thats about it for me.

Mike.

18

General Mach Discussion / Re: Changing the Jog% while jogging.

« on: November 02, 2011, 06:50:09 PM »

zparker, I use the macro pump to do this. I read the value and compare it to the previous value. If its changed I do a feed pause command followed by a run command. I then store the value for comparison for the next read cycle.

I hope this helps.\

Mike.